Jesus Christ :bleeding: :bleeding: :bleeding: :bleeding: :bleeding:
Came across this poll while surfing the net and found this statistic terribly depressing. It's an absolute indictment of the poor quality of education in this country, compounded by a willing disregard for the truth by many in the south who want to sugar coat the past so they can feel better about themselves and their ancestors. A simple reading of the Confederate constitution, the individual declarations of independence written by several southern states and the words of the Confederate founding fathers themselves prove that root cause of the war was slavery.
http://www.people-press.org/2011/04/08/civil-war-at-150-still-relevant-still-divisive/
QuoteThere is no consensus among the public about the primary cause of the Civil War, but more (48%) say that the war was mainly about states' rights than say it was mainly about slavery (38%). Another 9% volunteer that it was about both equally.
Young people are more likely than older Americans to say that the war's main cause was states' rights – 60% of those younger than 30 express this view, the highest percentage of any age group. Those 65 and older are the only age group in which more say that slavery, rather than states' rights, was the main cause of the Civil War (by 50% to 34%). While 48% of whites view states' rights was the war's main cause, so too do 39% of African Americans.
:lol: Timmah Rage.
Nobody gives a fuck about the Civil War anymore Tim. Nobody noticed during the 150th, even for things like Gettysburg.
Quote from: Valmy on December 17, 2013, 11:15:35 PM
Nobody gives a fuck about the Civil War anymore Tim. Nobody noticed during the 150th, even for things like Gettysburg.
Thankfully the majority disagree with you.
QuoteMore than half of Americans (56%) say the Civil War is still relevant, according to the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 30-April 3 among 1,507 adults. Nearly four-in-ten (39%) say the Civil War is important historically but has little current relevance.
Of course the majority opinion on the matter is immaterial to the truth, which is that the Civil War profoundly affects America to this day.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 17, 2013, 11:25:45 PM
Thankfully the majority disagree with you.
Thankfully my ass. That war needs to get to the museum where it belongs.
And 56% is a pretty small percentage for an event that as recently as the 80s was practically a national obsession. I am so glad it is starting to fade.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 17, 2013, 11:12:33 PM
A simple reading of the Confederate constitution, their state constitutions and the words of the Confederate founding fathers themselves prove that root cause of the war was slavery.
Read for the 48%
Quote from: Valmy on December 17, 2013, 11:31:50 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 17, 2013, 11:25:45 PM
Thankfully the majority disagree with you.
Thankfully my ass. That war needs to get to the museum where it belongs.
And 56% is a pretty small percentage for an event that as recently as the 80s was practically a national obsession. I am so glad it is starting to fade.
:yes: :hug:
It was a war over state's rights to leave the country.
It was a contest between two different kinds of evil and the more tolerable kind of evil won. USA!
It was a war over the right of white people in southern states to own black people, as guaranteed by their states. So, in a sense, it was over state's rights (a meaningless phrase).
As a veteran of the Civil War myself, I sure hope that people still find the war relevant!
Languish truly is dead if a thread about the cause of the ACW gets just ten replies! :o
The ACW has been done to death around here.
Quote from: Caliga on December 18, 2013, 10:46:21 PM
The ACW has been done to death around here.
:yes:
Now the ECW, not so much. I :wub: Montrose and Prince Rupert.
I'd like to talk about the Spanish Civil War some more, personally.
The Spanish Civil War was neither civil, nor a war. DISCUSS.
Quote from: KRonn on December 18, 2013, 07:47:00 AM
As a veteran of the Civil War myself, I sure hope that people still find the war relevant!
:lol:
Quote from: Caliga on December 18, 2013, 10:54:03 PM
I'd like to talk about the Spanish Civil War some more, personally.
The Spanish Civil War was neither civil, nor a war. DISCUSS.
Was it Spanish?
The issue of state's rights seemed mainly to be about the ability for Southern states to hang onto slavery, rather than the overall issue of states versus federal authority. But it would be interesting to hear if there was the real issue of the federal government becoming larger and that some states were objecting over the intrusion of power. Maybe that was going on but only the slave holding states rebelled anyway so that would seem to show me that the main issue was still slavery.
I have read that slavery would likely have come to an end anyways in a couple or few decades. It had to be becoming an outmoded practice and I would think as the late 1800s came around that even more and more people in the South would have been coming out against it.
I wonder if the kids today that are thinking that the ACW was more about states rights are looking at the federal vs states today and how much more power the feds have, and making the correlation that the ACW must have been an attempt to slow down federal expansion of power.
:hmm: Holding slaves was state law, so yes, the ACW was over state rights, at least one right in specific.
See I thought the crux of the issue was the protection of slave ownership under the Fifth amendment (deprived of property with due process of law blah blah) and the ability of slave owners to take their legal property into the territories. Not even the Republicans were calling for abolition inside the Southern States.
Quote from: KRonn on December 19, 2013, 09:49:25 AM
I wonder if the kids today that are thinking that the ACW was more about states rights are looking at the federal vs states today and how much more power the feds have, and making the correlation that the ACW must have been an attempt to slow down federal expansion of power.
That is how the Lost Causers tried to sell it even back in the 19th century. But Lost Causers have always been about retroactively rationalizing the Confederacy for whatever thing they feel they would have liked the Confederacy to be about.
But it is total nonsense. Both the Federal and Confederate governments did things during the war the pre-ACW federal government never would have dreamed of doing. And all those extra-ordinary powers pretty much went away in 1876 anyway so the ACW did not significantly expand the Federal Government.
This reminds me... when I was at the Museum of the Confederacy a few weeks back these two old dudes were walking through the exhibits and one of the old guys goes "I can't look at any more of these things, I'm getting too emotional" :bleeding:
I took a ton of pics and I guess I should post some of them at some point.
Quote from: Caliga on December 19, 2013, 11:59:41 AM
This reminds me... when I was at the Museum of the Confederacy a few weeks back these two old dudes were walking through the exhibits and one of the old guys goes "I can't look at any more of these things, I'm getting too emotional" :bleeding:
He remembers when his grandfather was telling him stories about the stories HIS grandfather told him. Really hits close to home.
In his defense, I think he said that in the room where they have the flags from most (or all?) of the Virginia regiments that were destroyed in Pickett's Charge.
Quote from: Caliga on December 19, 2013, 12:15:49 PM
In his defense, I think he said that in the room where they have the flags from most (or all?) of the Virginia regiments that were destroyed in Pickett's Charge.
I can get that. All those poor souls manipulated by a press and political structure controlled by slave owners to throw their lives away in a tragic war.
Quote from: Ed Anger on December 18, 2013, 10:48:06 PM
Quote from: Caliga on December 18, 2013, 10:46:21 PM
The ACW has been done to death around here.
:yes:
Now the ECW, not so much. I :wub: Montrose and Prince Rupert.
Rupert slept with his dog.
Quote from: Ed Anger on December 18, 2013, 10:48:06 PM
Quote from: Caliga on December 18, 2013, 10:46:21 PM
The ACW has been done to death around here.
:yes:
Now the ECW, not so much. I :wub: Montrose and Prince Rupert.
Podcast plug: http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/
If you love the ECW. I would be interested to know what ECW fans think of it.
By the way there are retarded new names for the ECW because it is not Politically Correct for some reason. So we get the 'British Wars' (which is retarded because it sounds like a name the Romans would give to something so it sounds like we are talking about the invasion of Britain or some series of wars against the Picts or something) or 'The Wars of the Three Kingdoms' (which is retarded since if you talk about 'The Three Kingdoms' everybody assumes you mean China). The PC crowd needs to find a name that actually makes us think of the events of the English Civil War.
Sort of like the people who tried to rebrand the 'French and Indian War' as 'The War for the Empire' because it seems that was the only war ever fought for an empire.
Quote from: Valmy on December 19, 2013, 01:01:28 PM
Sort of like the people who tried to rebrand the 'French and Indian War' as 'The War for the Empire' because it seems that was the only war ever fought for an empire.
"The War to Raise Taxes on the Colonies" as Grover Norquist would call it.
Quote from: Ed Anger on December 18, 2013, 10:48:06 PM
Quote from: Caliga on December 18, 2013, 10:46:21 PM
The ACW has been done to death around here.
:yes:
Now the ECW, not so much. I :wub: Montrose and Prince Rupert.
They went downhill after McMahon bought out the ECW.
Quote from: Valmy on December 19, 2013, 01:01:28 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on December 18, 2013, 10:48:06 PM
Quote from: Caliga on December 18, 2013, 10:46:21 PM
The ACW has been done to death around here.
:yes:
Now the ECW, not so much. I :wub: Montrose and Prince Rupert.
Podcast plug: http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/
If you love the ECW. I would be interested to know what ECW fans think of it.
By the way there are retarded new names for the ECW because it is not Politically Correct for some reason. So we get the 'British Wars' (which is retarded because it sounds like a name the Romans would give to something so it sounds like we are talking about the invasion of Britain or some series of wars against the Picts or something) or 'The Wars of the Three Kingdoms' (which is retarded since if you talk about 'The Three Kingdoms' everybody assumes you mean China). The PC crowd needs to find a name that actually makes us think of the events of the English Civil War.
Sort of like the people who tried to rebrand the 'French and Indian War' as 'The War for the Empire' because it seems that was the only war ever fought for an empire.
I vote for Roundheads versus Cavaliers: The Beheadening.
Quote from: Valmy on December 19, 2013, 11:52:15 AM
See I thought the crux of the issue was the protection of slave ownership under the Fifth amendment (deprived of property with due process of law blah blah) and the ability of slave owners to take their legal property into the territories. Not even the Republicans were calling for abolition inside the Southern States.
In fact, the relevant state law issue re slavery was the ability of the *northern* states to enforce their personal liberty laws. A question that was answered in the negative by Dred Scott.
I suppose one could cite that as a "state's rights" issue that led to outbreak of war but that is not the usual understanding.
It's interesting to read the S.Carolina declaration of succession - there is precious little in there about state's rights. The main complaint is that the northern states were using their own state law to frustrate enforcement of the federal constitution's protection of slave property.
AFAIK the only real state rights question at issue was the right to secede, which begs the question.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 18, 2013, 09:46:58 PM
Languish truly is dead if a thread about the cause of the ACW gets just ten replies! :o
I am still trying to figure out how to do an ACW thread hijacking on an ACW thread.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on December 19, 2013, 04:28:54 PM
AFAIK the only real state rights question at issue was the right to secede, which begs the question.
I believe that this is the first time the phrase "begs the question" has been used properly on Languish.
Quote from: Valmy on December 19, 2013, 01:01:28 PM'The Wars of the Three Kingdoms' (which is retarded since if you talk about 'The Three Kingdoms' everybody assumes you mean China).
Yes, but Korea had one of those too. :P
Quote from: Valmy on December 19, 2013, 11:54:36 AM
But it is total nonsense. Both the Federal and Confederate governments did things during the war the pre-ACW federal government never would have dreamed of doing.
The war helped galvanize a sense of Southern identity and national consciousness; defense of the that volk and opposition to the enemy became a cause worth sacrificing just about anything else upon the altar.
While the South may have been goaded by slavery, the North's reasons for participating in the war are worth examining as well; from the perspective of the Northern administration the greatest troubling aspect of the South leaving the union would undoubtedly be the fact they were responsible for providing the bulk of the federal budget.
The South had consistently felt like a marginalized, insulted and abused section, which wasn't necessarily true; The South was prideful, rash and violent, seeking equal footing with a far larger and more significant assemblage of people. That the North came to insult the South was no real surprise, for the South's behavior was in many ways contemptible, and also the extent of Southern demands were unreasonable. Maintaining the union on the footing the South wanted would've required a tremendous and unnatural concession on the part of the North.
Similarly, it would have been an enormous act of wisdom, kindness and justice for the secession to have resolved amicably and the North to have suffered the loss of Southern revenues, but the South was quixotically eager for a fight against slights which were at least partially imagined, and whimsically confident of the outcome. Any chance of democratic principles prevailing and a peaceful separation was rendered almost impossible by the South's euphoric eagerness to fight a war it couldn't win.
This must be Lettow's most articulated post.
Being articulate has never been Lettow's problem. He tends to wax romantic, but he's always well spoken to a fault, even when he's wrong.
Was the South actually bringing in the the majority of the federal budget? That seems unlikely.
I can see that. Keep in mind virtually the sole source of federal revenue at the time was tarrifs.
Yeah, but they paid it in cotton.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 20, 2013, 02:32:00 PM
Was the South actually bringing in the the majority of the federal budget? That seems unlikely.
This is a common Libertarian historical revisionist thing. I have heard it many times, it has to do with how much coastline and how many ports the South controlled. It is not something I have seen serious historians with access to actual documents from the time discuss and generally I discount motivations that lack any documentation of people actually saying they were motivated by that. It is supposed to be an evil federal conspiracy type thing.
That is not to say tariffs were never mentioned but that had to do with the levels of tariffs being levied, which had been a bone of contention for a long time. The Feds would have had to have gotten by with only the tariff receipts from Boston, New York, Baltimore and the northern ports. Of course the Feds had other taxes, like on beer making, which was exploding in the north at the time so I think they could have gotten by. It was not like the Federal Government was difficult to fund, it was pretty tiny.
The reason the north was so hot to trot was the whole Slavepower conspiracy, that these people were now destroying the country to protect their aristocratic and un-American lifestyles and the country had to be saved. This is also the reason they expected the South to fold easily and the war to be short. Even if there had been some super secret, never discussed publicly or privately, conspiracy to preserve the federal budget the political pressure from the Republican Party and its supporters to stop secession was immense.
About 70% of the tariff revenue in this period was received in the Port of New York.
There is still the question of how the incidence of those payments was distributed.
if you look at the bigger items, they are things like wool, wine, chinaware, sugar, coffee, silk and lace, linens, hides, metal and leather, glassware, hats, piece goods, and watches.
I don't see any reason to conclude that these items were consumed or used as inputs highly disproportionately in the South. Maybe silk and lace but not generally.
Have you omitted export tariffs?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 20, 2013, 02:34:27 PM
I can see that. Keep in mind virtually the sole source of federal revenue at the time was tarrifs.
And the mills in the UK ran on Southern cotton.
Quote from: grumbler on December 19, 2013, 06:51:46 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on December 19, 2013, 04:28:54 PM
AFAIK the only real state rights question at issue was the right to secede, which begs the question.
I believe that this is the first time the phrase "begs the question" has been used properly on Languish.
That begs the question of why the term is not used correctly more often.
Ducks, runs away :D
Quote from: Neil on December 20, 2013, 04:58:49 PM
And the mills in the UK ran on Southern cotton.
Right. And sugar and tobacco were both huge export crops. Whereas i don't think northern wheat was economical to export at the time and meat certainly wasn't before the advent of refrigerated shipping.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 20, 2013, 05:10:38 PM
Quote from: Neil on December 20, 2013, 04:58:49 PM
And the mills in the UK ran on Southern cotton.
Right. And sugar and tobacco were both huge export crops. Whereas i don't think northern wheat was economical to export at the time and meat certainly wasn't before the advent of refrigerated shipping.
Well right there has to be some meat to the whole 'Federal Tax' conspiracy theory. Of course the North was massively richer than the South and I am pretty sure they could have found the pennies in the couch cushions to fund the Federal Government. Hell just think of all the new tariffs and taxes they could have raised from the fact a new foreign country, that is going to be key trading partner, was just created just to the South of them.
Indeed the fact nobody in the government seemed particularly worried about this makes it fall kind of flat to me.
Quote from: Valmy on December 20, 2013, 05:16:22 PM
Well right there has to be some meat to the whole 'Federal Tax' conspiracy theory. Of course the North was massively richer than the South and I am pretty sure they could have found the pennies in the couch cushions to fund the Federal Government.
Which they did quite easily by floating debt during the war.
Not sure about that massively richer thing though. My understanding is that per capita was higher in the south.
Are you saying the ACW was not about states rights?
Quote from: Siege on December 20, 2013, 05:20:08 PM
Are you saying the ACW was not about states rights?
he's saying that states have powers, not rights.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 20, 2013, 05:19:10 PM
Which they did quite easily by floating debt during the war.
Not sure about that massively richer thing though. My understanding is that per capita was higher in the south.
The overwhelming majority of people in the south were small farmers or slaves so I find that unlikely.
Quote from: Siege on December 20, 2013, 05:20:08 PM
Are you saying the ACW was not about states rights?
States have no rights. Human beings have rights. States are arbitrary lines one draws in the dirt.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 20, 2013, 05:19:10 PM
Quote from: Valmy on December 20, 2013, 05:16:22 PM
Well right there has to be some meat to the whole 'Federal Tax' conspiracy theory. Of course the North was massively richer than the South and I am pretty sure they could have found the pennies in the couch cushions to fund the Federal Government.
Which they did quite easily by floating debt during the war.
Not sure about that massively richer thing though. My understanding is that per capita was higher in the south.
The South's per capita income was 73% that of the North in 1860. Bateman and Weiss,
A Deplorable Scarcity: The Failure of Industrialization in the Slave Economy p. 42 It was higher than the industrial Northeast, if you exclude slaves. If you treat slaves as intermediate capital goods, per capita income in the South exceeds that of the North, but that seems as artificial as treating them as normal consumers.
Quote from: Valmy on December 20, 2013, 05:56:38 PMThe overwhelming majority of people in the south were small farmers or slaves so I find that unlikely.
Would depend on how you define "per capita" as per Grumbler. I don't know what the right answer is but it would seem weird to me to consider per capita income with chattel as part of the divisor, do we divide total GDP by the number of humans + sheep + cattle + all other livestock to get our per capita GDP? Economically I think slaves were probably more comparable to livestock in terms of wage, than to full economic participants.
I don't know that, I'm not sure antebellum slave economics is easily understood or that society easily compared to the north using economic measures we mostly use when talking about our present day and more recent historical society.
But your point about small farms is stupid. Yeoman farmers have almost never been all that badly off, and they would certainly be better off than industrial wage earners in the 19th century who have no accumulated capital or real property. One of the big reasons everyone but the wealthiest in society were far richer in the colonies than in the British Isles is because tenant farmers were essentially nigh-unknown in the colonies while they were the norm back home. Tenant farmers and unskilled labor are almost never going to be wealthier than a property owning farmer when speaking in aggregate terms.
That's even looking to be true today, most small farmers that are still around now are pretty prosperous. The ones that weren't are long gone. I would assume back in the 50s/60s when unskilled labor was at its peak in terms of compensation maybe this wasn't the case. But I'll also note most poor farmers I've known were actually not land owners themselves. Lots of dirt poor farmers are actually leasers.
Quote from: Valmy on December 20, 2013, 05:58:05 PMStates have no rights. Human beings have rights. States are arbitrary lines one draws in the dirt.
Rights are a term of art more or less and just defined by law, so of course any legal entity can have rights. I guess you could argue they have "powers" which is a distinction without a difference. Most people way say States in the EU have specific rights in regard to their interactions with the greater Union, same as in the United States each State is entitled to two Senators to represent them for example.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 20, 2013, 07:11:24 PM
But your point about small farms is stupid. Yeoman farmers have almost never been all that badly off, and they would certainly be better off than industrial wage earners in the 19th century who have no accumulated capital or real property. One of the big reasons everyone but the wealthiest in society were far richer in the colonies than in the British Isles is because tenant farmers were essentially nigh-unknown in the colonies while they were the norm back home. Tenant farmers and unskilled labor are almost never going to be wealthier than a property owning farmer when speaking in aggregate terms.
I seriously question this. There were more small land owners here then in Europe, and they were certainly better off then their old world brethren, but it was still a rough job with irregular income. Factory work in the US often gave decent pay that was delivered on time for easier and less dangerous work. We often forget that before tractors were common farm labor was really hard work not to mention dangerous. I had a great aunt who was widowed 8 times due to farm accidents.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 20, 2013, 07:12:50 PM
Quote from: Valmy on December 20, 2013, 05:58:05 PMStates have no rights. Human beings have rights. States are arbitrary lines one draws in the dirt.
Rights are a term of art more or less and just defined by law, so of course any legal entity can have rights. I guess you could argue they have "powers" which is a distinction without a difference. Most people way say States in the EU have specific rights in regard to their interactions with the greater Union, same as in the United States each State is entitled to two Senators to represent them for example.
Don't want to pick on you, but there is a difference. Powers can be removed without due process. Rights can not.
I was taught the difference between rights and powers was that powers are delegated and rights are inherent. Powers would then be delegated rights.
Quote from: Valmy on December 20, 2013, 05:58:05 PM
Quote from: Siege on December 20, 2013, 05:20:08 PM
Are you saying the ACW was not about states rights?
States have no rights. Human beings have rights. States are arbitrary lines one draws in the dirt.
Rights are arbitrary too, so there's no reason a state couldn't have rights just as much as a person could.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 20, 2013, 07:36:06 PMI seriously question this. There were more small land owners here then in Europe, and they were certainly better off then their old world brethren, but it was still a rough job with irregular income. Factory work in the US often gave decent pay that was delivered on time for easier and less dangerous work. We often forget that before tractors were common farm labor was really hard work not to mention dangerous. I had a great aunt who was widowed 8 times due to farm accidents.
I'm not convinced a 19th century farm is more dangerous than a 19th century factory.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 20, 2013, 07:41:51 PMDon't want to pick on you, but there is a difference. Powers can be removed without due process. Rights can not.
Says who?
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on December 20, 2013, 08:55:01 PM
I was taught the difference between rights and powers was that powers are delegated and rights are inherent. Powers would then be delegated rights.
No legal constructs like "rights" or "powers" are inherent.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2013, 09:35:43 AM
No legal constructs like "rights" or "powers" are inherent.
The entire basis of our country is that they are inherent.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2013, 09:35:43 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 20, 2013, 07:36:06 PMI seriously question this. There were more small land owners here then in Europe, and they were certainly better off then their old world brethren, but it was still a rough job with irregular income. Factory work in the US often gave decent pay that was delivered on time for easier and less dangerous work. We often forget that before tractors were common farm labor was really hard work not to mention dangerous. I had a great aunt who was widowed 8 times due to farm accidents.
I'm not convinced a 19th century farm is more dangerous than a 19th century factory.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 20, 2013, 07:41:51 PMDon't want to pick on you, but there is a difference. Powers can be removed without due process. Rights can not.
Says who?
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on December 20, 2013, 08:55:01 PM
I was taught the difference between rights and powers was that powers are delegated and rights are inherent. Powers would then be delegated rights.
No legal constructs like "rights" or "powers" are inherent.
Says who? Says the constitution. Government powers can be removed with a stroke of a pen. Individual rights cannot be so easily removed.
Quote from: Valmy on December 21, 2013, 04:12:24 PM
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2013, 09:35:43 AM
No legal constructs like "rights" or "powers" are inherent.
The entire basis of our country is that they are inherent.
Also, that rights are not legal constructs.
If Raz and Grumbler are on the same side of an argument, who can stand against?
Quote from: Valmy on December 21, 2013, 04:12:24 PMThe entire basis of our country is that they are inherent.
Explain what practical effect that has versus them being legal constructs. If they are inherent, does that mean there is some way that I can inherently know exactly what rights I have? Or what they specifically entitle me to do? How do I know what my inherent rights are, and what their parameters are?
Your country is based on a lie then.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 21, 2013, 07:48:01 PM
If Raz and Grumbler are on the same side of an argument, who can stand against?
Often Grumbler and Raz. Raz because he's crazy and grumbler because it's frequently hard to pin down exactly what he's arguing. :P
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2013, 07:48:54 PM
Quote from: Valmy on December 21, 2013, 04:12:24 PMThe entire basis of our country is that they are inherent.
Explain what practical effect that has versus them being legal constructs. If they are inherent, does that mean there is some way that I can inherently know exactly what rights I have? Or what they specifically entitle me to do? How do I know what my inherent rights are, and what their parameters are?
The practical effect is that you can exercise these rights without a government. If there were no government you'd still have these rights. Governments can't grant these rights, they can only protect or take them away. They are inherent in a person. A power is a construct, a government has to create a power.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on December 21, 2013, 07:55:45 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 21, 2013, 07:48:01 PM
If Raz and Grumbler are on the same side of an argument, who can stand against?
Often Grumbler and Raz. Raz because he's crazy and grumbler because it's frequently hard to pin down exactly what he's arguing. :P
"One is a moron, the other's insane..."
Quote from: Razgovory on December 21, 2013, 07:57:55 PMThe practical effect is that you can exercise these rights without a government. If there were no government you'd still have these rights. Governments can't grant these rights, they can only protect or take them away. They are inherent in a person. A power is a construct, a government has to create a power.
Give me an example of one of these rights I can exercise without a government and how I would go about exercising it.
OvB is a Hobbesian.
He's right. A right is meaningless unless you have a state that can coerce protection or respect for the right is universally internalized in the population.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2013, 08:10:40 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on December 21, 2013, 07:57:55 PMThe practical effect is that you can exercise these rights without a government. If there were no government you'd still have these rights. Governments can't grant these rights, they can only protect or take them away. They are inherent in a person. A power is a construct, a government has to create a power.
Give me an example of one of these rights I can exercise without a government and how I would go about exercising it.
Freedom of speech. You can stand on an unclaimed island and scream your head off.
So to exercise these rights I need to be on an unclaimed and presumably uninhabited island? Humans are social animals by nature, what do I do if more realistically I live with or near other people and one of them informs me he will kill me if I say certain things that offend him?
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2013, 10:13:01 PM
So to exercise these rights I need to be on an unclaimed and presumably uninhabited island? Humans are social animals by nature, what do I do if more realistically I live with or near other people and one of them informs me he will kill me if I say certain things that offend him?
No, the unclaimed island is an example of a place without government (there aren't really many places on Earth without governments so examples tend to be odd). The fact you can exercise the rights without a government means government does not grant them. They are inherent. Keeping people from killing you is
protecting a right, not granting a right.
Quote from: Razgovory on December 21, 2013, 11:22:18 PM
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on December 21, 2013, 10:13:01 PM
So to exercise these rights I need to be on an unclaimed and presumably uninhabited island? Humans are social animals by nature, what do I do if more realistically I live with or near other people and one of them informs me he will kill me if I say certain things that offend him?
I think you're confusing the mere physical act of speaking with the right to freedom of speech.
No, the unclaimed island is an example of a place without government (there aren't really many places on Earth without governments so examples tend to be odd). The fact you can exercise the rights without a government means government does not grant them. They are inherent. Keeping people from killing you is protecting a right, not granting a right.
In a land without government, what's the difference?
What exactly are these rights that exist in a vacuum?
Quote from: The Brain on December 22, 2013, 02:40:07 AM
What exactly are these rights that exist in a vacuum?
The right to suck.
:lol:
Quote from: The Brain on December 22, 2013, 02:40:07 AM
What exactly are these rights that exist in a vacuum?
How about you read John Locke instead of me paraphrasing it for you.
Teach wins! :lol:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on December 22, 2013, 04:22:30 AM
Quote from: The Brain on December 22, 2013, 02:40:07 AM
What exactly are these rights that exist in a vacuum?
How about you read John Locke instead of me paraphrasing it for you.
What's with the bratitude?
Nice.
You come up with that yourself Brain?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 22, 2013, 08:22:28 AM
Nice.
You come up with that yourself Brain?
I wish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdMAXdoIdlE
:hmm:
2.4 Imdb rating. Sounds like one Malthus would enjoy. Or that Ide wouldn't enjoy but he'd still give it a C.
I seem to remember saying on this forum that I collect Bratz dolls.